The Null Device

Distressed inventory

A piece on Sanctuary Records, the big-indie label which recently signed Morrissey. It seems that they were the label behind Iron Maiden (which explains why their name is associated with metal), and that they're the new home of the Pet Shop Boys. Also, Rough Trade seems to be part of Sanctuary, and not Mute/EMI as I thought; that's good, as it means that the next Belle & Sebastian album will most probably be out in Red Book CD format. (thanks, Owen)

(It also appears that Sanctuary are listed on the stock exchange. Is a label still an "indie" if they're publically traded, and have shareholders who could sue if they do anything that doesn't maximise profits?)

(Btw, does anyone know whether Sanctuary have distribution in Australia, and if so, with whom? I'm guessing it'd be Inertia or Remote Control or someone like that.)

There are 3 comments on "Distressed inventory":

Posted by: Graham http://grudnuk.com/ Sun Jun 8 02:19:34 2003

Do some research, man! Sanctuary are handled by Shock locally... http://www.shock.com.au/releases/labels/info.asp?label_ID=1199

Given that Robert Fripp has seen it fit to be handled by them, they must be relatively ethical...

Yeah, I should've told you my copy of "Fold Your Hands" had the Inertia and Spunk marks on it, though it didn't cross my mind.

Posted by: acb http://dev.null.org Sun Jun 8 09:48:54 2003

Belle & Sebastian were signed to Jeepster, a small indie label, in the UK and Matador in the US. They've since signed a worldwide deal with Rough Trade.

Posted by: Graham http://grudnuk.com/ Sun Jun 8 14:26:22 2003

Hmm, just rereading what I said about spunk marks. You really should have a preview thingy.